Soccer or football is a team sport between two teams of 11
players with a spherical ball. Football is the most popular sport of the world
with the craze for it increasing more and more day by day and the major cause
for it is the advent of fantasy
football sports.

Playing online
fantasy football having detailed knowledge about the historical
facts of the sport is much fun than playing without knowledge. Hence, know
about the timeline of football from the early times.

The Beginning of the Sport

The
very early form of the game with scientific proof was an effect from a
military manual in China. It dates back in 206 B.C. to 220 A.D.

The
Han Dynasty predecessor of a football was termed Ts’u Chu. It
was a leather ball of 30-40cm in diameter full with hair and feathers.

In
Japan, a similar form of this game, known as kemari. It started about
500-600 years after the creation of Ts’u Chu. It then
followed by chuk-guk in Korea and woggabaliri in Australia.

The
Greek episkyros and the Roman harpastum were soon
after played with a smaller ball by two teams on a rectangular field
marked by boundary lines and a centreline. The aim was to get the
ball over opponent’s area.

Introduction to the global game of football

In 1314, football grew
in fame in Europe, but authorities issued decrees
forbidding the sport within the city due to the chaos
it normally caused.

In
1365, King Edward III of England really made the game punishable
by law as it distracted soldiers from practising
more helpful military disciplines, in particular archery.
The ban lasted nearly 500 years.

Although football was famous
from the 8th to the 19th century, it muddled, violent, and
more impulsive and normally played by
an imprecise number of players.

It
was 9 years after the rules of football were
first recognized in 1863 that the size and weight of
the football was ultimately standardised.

At the
beginning of the 19th century, school football became the
custom, in particular in the famous public schools. But the
rules were still relatively free and easy, with no standard form of the
game.

Handling
the ball was at first authorized, but on 8 December
1863, football ultimately barred it. The game that adapted
ball-handling became the official sport of rugby.

On the
same year that the Football Association formed.

Worldwide Membership

The
world’s oldest football competition is the FA Cup. C.W. Alcock
found it and has been contented by English teams ever
since 1872.

The
first official international match took place in 1872 in Glasgow, between
England and Scotland.

England
is also home to the world’s first football league, which was founded
in Birmingham in 1888 by

Aston
Villa director William McGregor. The original format has 12
clubs from Northern England and the Midlands.

When
FIFA was founded in Paris in May 1904, it had 7 founder members:
France, Denmark, Belgium, Spain, the
Netherlands, Switzerland and Sweden.

By
1925, the number had increased to 36, while in 1930 – the year of the
first World Cup – it was 41.

Over
the next half-century, football’s fame continued to attract
new fans and at the end of the 2007 FIFA Congress, FIFA had 208
members in all parts of the globe.

Women and Football

While football was
played in several nations, in
1921 women of London were banned from playing the
game. The banning lasted for 50 years.

By
contrast, Italy and France formed women’s leagues in early
1930s.

The
1996 Olympics in Atlanta initiated women’s football as an
Olympic event.

The
first Women’s World Cup was held in China from 16-30 November, 1991. It
was followed by Dr. Hao Joao Havelange, who
is the president of FIFA.

At
that event, the U.S. team won, beating Norway 2-1 in the finals. The
U.S. later won the third Women’s World Cup in 1999, beating China.
That event was held in the US.

At
present, football is played at the pro level
in many nations in the entire world and 176 national
teams partake globally.

Twice
the FIFA World Player of the Year, Mia Hamm led the United States to FIFA
World Cup titles in 1991 and 1999 and Olympic gold in 1996 and 2004.